Vietnam rescue memorialized at Muster reunion

11:54 AM,
Nov. 8, 2013

The Navy SEAL Muster and Music Festival takes place Friday, Saturday and Sunday in Fort Pierce.

Written by

Rick Neale
| FLORIDA TODAY

Under heavy gunfire from dozens of North Vietnamese soldiers, Navy SEAL Mike Thornton lifted critically injured fellow SEAL Tom Norris onto his shoulders and carried him in the darkness down to the beach and into the surf of the South China Sea.

Inflating Norris' life jacket, Thornton kept him afloat and breaststroked for about two hours to a support boat after that October 1972 beach-landing firefight near the Cua Viet River. Norris - who had been shot in the head -underwent surgery and endured three years of rehabilitation, but he survived.